Nancy Pelosi Guest Ejected from State of the Union After Outburst
It wasn’t just the House speaker who made a spectacle of herself.
Nancy Pelosi’s disgraceful moment of dramatically tearing up President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Speech made for big television Tuesday night, but Trump’s speech was slightly disrupted earlier during his vow to protect Second Amendment rights of Americans.
And, naturally, it was a guest of Pelosi’s who was behind it.
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter in the Parkland school shooting, was escorted out of the gallery during Pres. Trump’s #SOTU address after shouting from the speaker’s box as the president mentioned that he would protect gun rights. https://t.co/fV18qTfRap
— ABC News (@ABC) February 5, 2020
Fred Guttenberg, the father of a girl killed in the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018, caused a disturbance in the House gallery that got him ejected from the setting, Fox News reported.
It wasn’t clear what Guttenberg yelled to get himself thrown out, though HuffPost congressional reporter Matt Fuller posted on Twitter that it related to “victims of gun violence like my daughter.”
A man shouts from the gallery about “victims of gun violence like my daughter.”
He shouted it while Republicans were applauding, so most people didn’t really hear it, but Capitol Police have removed the man from the chamber.
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) February 5, 2020
Guttenberg’s daughter, 14-year-old Jaime, was among the 17 teens and adults who were murdered on Feb. 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
He has become a vocal advocate of gun control, which is his right as both a grieving father and an American citizen.
But indulging in an outburst while the president of the United States is addressing a joint session of Congress — and as an invited guest of the speaker of the House of Representatives no less — is pushing advocacy beyond the bounds of activism.
Of course, Guttenberg’s actions got lots of anti-Trump love on social media — media hounds like former Parkland student and current Harvard undergrad David Hogg enjoyed it, for instance.
.@fred_guttenberg lost his daughter in the Parkland shooting and has worked every day since to end gun violence.
Tonight he stood up to a president that believes peace and the second amendment are mutually exclusive and was removed.#ImWithFred pic.twitter.com/RprctMp2iE
— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) February 5, 2020
But there’s a time when adults need to act like adults.
No one can deny the kind of grief that losing a child entails, but the reality is, if there had been an armed teacher on the Stoneman Douglas campus that day, or if the sheriff’s deputy assigned to the school had done his job, it’s possible that Guttenberg’s daughter and other victims would be alive today.
The solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, not depriving millions of American citizens their own right to defend their own lives and liberties.
And not everyone on social media was swooning over Guttenberg’s protest, or his explanation:
No, you made a scene and are asking for Americans to be disarmed. Not gonna happen. Sorry for your loss, but Americans have a God Given Right to be Armed. Deal with it.
— Renae Rogers (@CaRenaeTX) February 5, 2020
The 2nd Amendment protects everyone, even rude obnoxious people like you who disrupted the SOTU address. Disgraceful!
— ripleylake (@ripleylake) February 5, 2020
Neither @realDonaldTrump nor the 2nd Amendment was/is responsible for the Stoneman Douglas shooting. A failed mental health treatment system and a refusal by society to admit that some people are too crazy to be walking around caused this shooting. #2ndAmendment
— Muss Muggins (@paulhboyd1) February 5, 2020
Second Amendment rights are a hot-button issue in the country, of course, and the parents and loved ones of murder victims make for powerful advocates.
But liberals like Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues have been pimping the pain of Americans for so long that protests like the one Tuesday night have gotten devoid of personal power.
It should also be noted that this wasn’t exactly Guttenberg’s first brush with media attention at a nationally televised political event.
In 2018, during the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Guttenberg was the subject of a social media stir when Kavanaugh was acccused of ignoring his outstretched hand during a break in the proceedings.
(Guttenberg was opposed to Kavanaugh’s confirmation.)
Pelosi’s childish reactions Tuesday night, including her grandstanding vandalism of the copy of Trump’s speech at the end of the State of the Union address, were made-for-TV moments, chances to signal to her Democratic base that she’ll be against the president no matter what the terms.
And for many, that’s what Guttenberg’s outburst will amount to, too.
Of course, there’s no way of knowing if Pelosi knew what Guttenberg was going to do — judging by her reaction behind Trump when it took place, she seemed as surprised as anyone, but that doesn’t take away her share of responsibility for it, since Guttenberg was there at her invitation.
More to the point, no matter how sincere Guttenberg’s actions might have been, it’s safe to say that for millions of Americans, it was just another anti-Trumper making a spectacle of himself — part of the spectacle Pelosi & Co., with the tireless aid of the mainstream media, have been creating for the past three years.
And he and his sympathizers have Democratic histrionics to thank for that.
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